PERSIAN GULF

U.S., BRITISH TROOPS RESCUE PEACE ACTIVISTS HELD HOSTAGE IN IRAQ

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Without firing a shot, American and British forces stormed a house yesterday and freed three Christian peace activists who were bound but unguarded, ending a four-month hostage ordeal that saw an American in the group killed and dumped along a railroad track.

The U.S. ambassador and the top American military spokesman held out hope the operation on the outskirts of Baghdad could lead to a break in the captivity of American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelance writer for the Christian Science Monitor who was abducted January 7.

The military spokesman, Major General Rick Lynch, said the 8 a.m. rescue of the Briton and two Canadians from a “kidnapping cell” was based on information divulged by a man during interrogation only three hours earlier. The man was captured by American forces on Wednesday night.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

CABLE CAR PLANNED FOR JERUSALEM’S OLD CITY

JERUSALEM – Israel announced plans on Thursday to string a cable car around the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City to carry thousands of visitors to the Western Wall, the most sacred of Jewish shrines.

Under the plan, gondolas carrying as many as 70 people would travel from west Jerusalem around the Old City’s walls, past the site of the Last Supper on Mount Zion to a terminus near Dung Gate. While it would be open to passengers of all faiths, the cable car is intended primarily to ease access to the Western Wall for tens of thousands of Jewish worshippers.

– The Daily Telegraph

CARIBBEAN

CIGARETTE STARTS FIRE ABOARD CARIBBEAN CRUISE SHIP

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica – A fire apparently started by a cigarette broke out aboard a cruise ship early yesterday as it sailed through the moonlit Caribbean, injuring 11 people and scorching about 100 rooms. One elderly American passenger died from a heart attack, the cruise ship company said.

The Star Princess, carrying 2,690 passengers and 1,123 crew members, bore evidence of the nighttime drama as it pulled into Montego Bay’s port. About 85 exterior cabins were blackened from the fire, a stark contrast to the otherwise gleaming white exterior of the ship. Metal was twisted, evidence of the heat of the blaze.

“We consider ourselves very lucky,” Klemens Fass, of Toronto, Canada, told the Associated Press after he and his wife were evacuated with other some passengers.”When we got out of our stateroom … there was someone lying in the hallway passed out. He was being attended to but it was very, very scary.”

– Associated Press

CENTRAL AFRICA

127 FEARED DEAD IN CAMEROON FERRY SINKING

YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Fishermen searched the seas off Cameroon yesterday for 127 people feared dead after a ferry sank.

The boat was bound for the central African nation of Gabon from a town in Nigeria near Cameroon’s border. First word of the accident came when fishermen found bodies floating Wednesday off the port town of Kribi, said a top regional official, Gregoire Mvombo.

He cited survivors as saying 150 people from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast were onboard, and 23 people were rescued. The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

FAMILY FEUD FORCES SONIA GANDHI TO RESIGN AS INDIAN MP

NEW DELHI – Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress Party and the leader of India’s governing coalition, resigned as an Indian MP yesterday following a bitter political and family feud with the wife of the country’s biggest film star.

Mrs. Gandhi was accused of breaking an obscure election law that bans Indian MPs from holding “offices of profit.”

However, despite her resignation Mrs. Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi who turned down the job of prime minister in 2004, will remain the guiding power behind the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

The row that forced her resignation stemmed from an attempt by the Congress Party to oust Jaya Bachchan, the wife of Amitabh Bachchan and a member of the rival Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, from her seat on the grounds that she held an office of profit.

– The Daily Telegraph